


J is for Just One More Thing

by Jedi Buttercup (jedibuttercup)



Series: JB's Stargate Soup Recipes [11]
Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alphabet Soup Challenge, Episode: s03e06 Point of View, Gen, Missing Scene, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 11:38:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12887055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jedibuttercup/pseuds/Jedi%20Buttercup
Summary: No matter how damaged one's own reality, there really was no place like home.





	J is for Just One More Thing

**Author's Note:**

> For SG-1 quantum mirror alphabet soup, picking at another loose thread that's often nagged at me. :)

"Just one more thing," Dr. Jackson said, tapping the controller for the Quantum Mirror against his palm.

Behind him, the device that had saved Sam's reality was still in its quiescent state, a dull flat surface just barely taller than the average human surrounded by a rocklike frame that was neither rectangular nor oval in its dimensions. It suggested a culture of origin that viewed aesthetics as being of equal importance to function, something not uncommon among the few advanced alien species the SGA had encountered. She hoped that one day her Earth might still reach an equal level of development-- though if it did, it would owe much to the intervention of the man in front of her and his own team.

"What is it, Dr. Jackson?" she asked. 

They had a few minutes before the rest of his team finished briefing Kawalsky and General Hammond on other resources and allies the SGA might want to look for, in cases where the exploration histories between their two realities differed. Dr. Jackson had made a few contributions of his own, but after asking about the fate of Abydos in their reality had volunteered to return to the Mirror to give himself plenty of time to find the right setting. Sam had followed him, both out of curiosity and from a desire to give herself a little distance from the echo of her husband. She'd have to say goodbye to the other Colonel O'Neill soon enough, no need to torture herself unnecessarily with his presence.

"I didn't have time to ask before. Was Catherine, Catherine Langford... was she here when the Goa'uld attack started?"

Sam blinked. "No, why would she be? We evacuated her to the beta site with our most critical personnel as soon as the Goa'uld fleet appeared on the scanners. She's still the closest we come to an expert in the various alien languages we've encountered. Is that not the case in your world?"

"Ah... not exactly," Dr. Jackson replied, with a quick, self-deprecatory smile. "She recruited me into the program in my world, then retired as soon as we got the program up and running. I guess I must have turned her down here, as I did in the other reality I encountered. I can't tell you if that version of me was actually dead, since I wasn't there long enough for entropic cascade failure to have become an issue, but he was definitely in Egypt when the Goa'uld showed up, and I'd guess if he's still alive _your_ version of me will probably be there, too. Anyway, since she's still here... did your team ever visit Heliopolis? PB2-908? ...The meeting place of the four advanced races of the Ancient Alliance?"

Sam's brow furrowed at the list of unfamiliar references. "No, I don't think so. And this is the first we've heard of such an alliance... I assume the Stargate builders were part of it?" 

"Exactly," he nodded. "The Asgard as well; though don't bother trying to ask them for any of their tech, they're perfectly willing to protect us but not educate us. Like the Nox... have you met the Nox?"

No, she hadn't; she wished they had more time to exchange knowledge. "The history of your Stargate program sounds so much more colorful than ours; does the makeup of SG-1 really make that much of difference?"

"In this case, I guess so," he replied, pensively. "Now that I think about it, we went to PC3-117 looking for an invisible creature that Teal'c had heard about, so _you_ wouldn't have known to go there. And Heliopolis... I was the one who found its gate address, looking back through old video records. Anyway, how this all relates to Catherine.... There's a chance, I'm not sure how much of one depending on how the variations between our realities affected the weather there, but at least a small chance that Ernest Littlefield is still _on_ Heliopolis, here. Provided he actually went through-- but I can't imagine Catherine would still be working here, still Dr. Langford, if he hadn't."

" _On_ Heliopolis?" Sam walked further into the room and crossed her arms over her chest. "But I just told you I didn't recognize the name or gate address-- and even if we know it under a different string of characters, I don't recognize the name Littlefield either. And I _do_ know the name of everyone who's gone through the gate."

"In modern times. But if he went through in 1945 and never managed to return, and they buried the records afterward...." he shrugged. 

"Nineteen _when_?" Sam's eyebrows flew up; surely _that_ was a difference between their worlds. "But we didn't have a dialing computer, then! Or even any means of powering it up! How would anyone have gone through?"

"The old-fashioned way, like spinning a rotary phone," Dr. Jackson waved that concern away. "And it's close enough that the drift is pretty negligible. It wasn't... anything that huge in the scheme of things, so Jack probably won't think to mention it, though the meeting room there _is_ fantastic and I hope at least one version of me somewhere had a chance to fully explore. But our SGC left a man alone there for fifty-two years, so if there's a chance he's still stranded _here_ , I had to mention it. Just... tell Catherine what I said when she gets back. She changed my life in my reality, and another version of her got killed giving me a chance to escape with vital information. Teal'c says ours is the only reality of consequence, but I couldn't just sit on that knowledge if I could help someone with it."

Sam hadn't been all that impressed by the archaeologist slash linguist at first sight; she'd been too caught up in him not being Dr. Rothman, and there being a Jaffa on the new reality's SG-1, to give him much thought. But despite all the rambling, he was charming when he wanted to be, brilliant, and fairly open-minded, three things not often found in the same person.

"Thank you, Dr. Jackson," she replied. "Maybe I _will_ look our world's version of you up. You think he'd change his mind?"

"Given that all the theories that got him mocked back in academia just came true?" He chuckled. "I don't know why he originally said 'no', so I can't say for sure, but I also can't believe there's any version of me out there that wouldn't listen to a Samantha Carter."

"Well, I hope you're right about yourself, then," she nodded, then glanced at the nearest wall clock. "I'd better go see what's keeping the others... though before I leave you to it, _I_ have just one more question."

"Sure," he replied.

She bit her lip. "...Is the me in your universe _happy_? I get that she's not with your version of Jack, but...."

He didn't even have to think about his answer, seeming to realize what she was really asking. "Don't let yourself dwell too much on the what-if's; that's an easy road to get lost on. But yes; I believe she is. I think any Sam Carter has the capacity to make the most of the circumstances she finds herself in."

A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "I admit my sample set is a lot smaller than yours, but just based on our short acquaintance, I would bet the same is true of any Daniel Jackson," she replied.

"Maybe one day I'll find out," he replied, then glanced over his shoulder at the Mirror. "Provided I manage to get us home first."

"Or at least to a reality so close to the original that the differences that do exist are too small to be discernible...." she mused aloud.

"Don't even suggest that!" he exclaimed, adopting the same teasing tone. "If I had a nickel for the number of times I woke up from a nightmare after my first trip through one of these, convinced that I hadn't actually returned to the right reality...."

A shiver went up Sam's spine at the thought, and a Jack-ism slipped out. "For crying out loud; now _I'm_ thinking about it," she admitted, wryly.

He thumbed on the control device as they both chuckled.

But not too loudly. Because his friend Teal'c was right. 

No matter how damaged one's own reality, there really was no place like home.


End file.
